Kaltenborn rues ‘very frustrating’ Austrian GP

Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn labels last Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix ‘very frustrating’, as she thinks the Swiss outfit could not show its true hand following a litany of issues.

Lining up eighth and 11^th respectively, Felipe Nasr and team-mate Marcus Ericsson entered the race with strong hopes of returning to the points but things immediately went awry for the Swede.

“Marcus’ race from the beginning was pretty much messed up with the jump start he had,” Kaltenborn told F1i. “And then the car was damaged with the debris on track; on top of that he got his penalty.

“Then we had an ECU [electronics control unit] problem with everything just going blank. Nothing really worked with him. But if you look at his pace, it was not that bad in spite of all his problems.”

Although Nasr fared better in the opening stages of the race, the Brazilian soon experienced “massive issues with his brake cooling”, which led him to falling one place shy of the points-paying positions.

Finishing 11^th and 13^th makes Kaltenborn all the more upset considering the Ferrari-powered C34 had looked the part throughout the weekend at the Red Bull Ring, especially in the hands of Nasr. Indeed, the F1 rookie ran well inside the top 10 in Friday’s free practice and was again in Q3 on Saturday.

“It’s very disappointing, very frustrating, because there’s more in this car and we could show that throughout the weekend.

“It’s not that others were not showing everything. We found in our setup bits and pieces, which could make us understand certain issues better. And then we had all these problems in the race.”

Click here for the gallery of Raikkonen and Alonso's crash at the Austrian Grand Prix

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